16 CALYCIFLOR^E, 



I. Terminalia Catappa, St. Helena Jllmond. 



Leaves elongate— obovate in the adult subglab- 

 rous (_ferrugineo— pubescent on the under surface 

 in the young leaves), an obscure glandule on each 

 side of the mid-rib towards the base, drupe com- 

 pressed. 



Amygdalus Indica, Rail Hist. 1521. — Terminalia Ca- 

 tappa,'/^. Ic. Rar. t. 197. — Hooker, Bot. Mag. t. 3004. 



HAB. Cultivated. Common. 



F L. June — August. 



A Tree, 30-50 feet in height. Leaves 6-12 inches long, 

 with the margin thickened, and involuted beneath towards 

 the base, and in the young leaves provided with minute 

 brown glandular deciducus teeth. Disk of the calyx in- 

 ternally villous, persistent. Stamens ; 5 of them opposite 

 to the calycine lobes, with their insertion low in the 

 calyx ; the 5 in the indentations with their insertion 

 higher, and hence they are apparently longer: filaments 

 white, glabrous; anthers ovate, yellow. Ovary villous. 

 Fruit about 2 inches in length, ovali-orbiculate, corn- 

 pressed, almost winged at the edges. 



According to Sir William Hooker's observations on a 

 flowering specimen obtained from the Liverpool Botanic 

 Garden, the leaves are, especially on the under surface, 

 pubescenti-tomentose. This may be ascribed to the cir- 

 cumstance of their having been produced in a close Hot- 

 house, where the downy covering, which is deciduous, 

 would be much longer retained, than in the open air ex- 

 posed to the breeze and the rain. 



This Tree is a native of the East Indies, the Isle of 

 France, &c. It was introduced into this Island from St. 

 Helena, in H. M. S. Providence, 1793, and is now very 

 common. The fruit, from the hardness of the shell, is 

 scarcely ever made use of. We are informed however, 

 that it is served up at the first tables in India, and that the 

 Natives, obtain an expressed oil, and make an emulsion 

 from the kernels, and emp^y an infusion of the leaves 

 as a remedy in cholic. The taste of the fruit resembles 

 that of the sweet almond. The w T ood is white and hard. 

 The tree itself is very ornamental ; the stem erect, and 

 the branches spreading horizontally. It has a very re- 

 markable and beautiful appearance previous to shedding 



